Why do Piper J-3 Cub is still so popular around the world?

[Pawelk198604]

Why do Piper J-3 Cub is still so popular I read that in old days communist Poland bought license to produce in Poland and for many years it was become on and it's licensed copy most popular general aviation in Poland and Eastern Block and in World?

[Capt. Hunt]

As I understand, the Piper Cub and it's derivatives are very simple aircraft that are easy to fly and cheap to maintain.

[insert_name]

37 minutes ago, Capt. Hunt said:

As I understand, the Piper Cub and it's derivatives are very simple aircraft that are easy to fly and cheap to maintain.

that plus low takeoff and landing speeds make them excellent bush planes

[StrandedonEarth]

5 hours ago, insert_name said:

that plus low takeoff and landing speeds make them excellent bush planes

Yeah, like this....

 

[YNM]

Because you can make it out of a barn.

 

It's just (oddly) the "standard" for bush planes (least in sims !). These kind of planes feels a bit wrong to feature any groups of kinds - they're too close to each other, and they're infinitely customizeable. You can have one stripped to WW1 dogfight plane while the other propped up to take guests or something.

[PB666]

The cub and super-cub is generally a very forgiving and intuitive aircraft. The original model was 40 horsepower, and when it was created it did not have the cooling problems that other contemporary aircraft engines had.

A glorified lawnmower engine.

In addition most cub owners knew how to repair their craft if it had problems and generally carried tools that allowed it to be repaired. Because it travels so slowly you almost don't need an altimeter (look down you see were the ground is), you need an airspeed indicator, but pulling out of stalls is like super easy. (one reason that it was the primary craft to train US pilots during WWII). You almost never hear of a cub crashing because of engine failure or out of gas because there is generally somewhere with a spot of land long enough and wide enough for a cub to put down in a very rough landing (as a consequence there are alot of old cubs running around, durability in a crisis). At 40 mph you probably would survive a crash, if not bruised pretty heavily.

Lets say you are too high on your approach to the dirt road down a cow pasture you intend to land on. Basically make a circle and loose some altitude, some would try the serpentine approach. The turn radius for a cub is like 300 feet, the turn radius for a heavy flying at maximum altitide is 8 nautical miles. Because of its extremely low approach speed and tight turning radius cubs have been extensively used in the Alaskan bush. It has several other advantages. Because it uses gasoline the gas doesn't freeze (which can happen with turboprops in very cold weather that Alaska occasionally has). To understand why you want low approach speed, imagine that your craft is traveling downward at say a meter per second, and you are traveling across terrain that is not flat. If you manage to touch down on a slight downhill you won't feel it, but at a slight uphill, what it feels like in addition to your verticle speed

your vertical speed + Sin(slope)*your horizontal speed. So if it is sloping at 10' up, even if for only a foot, when you hit it its going to feel like 3.17 meter per sec in a cub and 4.25 meters per second in a cessna, but the energy is 80% greater in a 172. The problem in the bush is you have to take off with the same gear you land with, there are no repair shops, so you kinda don't want to bust up your gear on landing.

The disadvantages is that its not really an IFR craft. IN the vintage craft, youll notice there are no radios, pilots who fly IFR mean (I fly roads).  Even when it was originally  built there were non-directional beacons, but these craft are really designed to use the terrain for navigation which means not to good at night or bad weather. Pretty much any cub that's flying currently will have a traffic radio and some sort of additional radionavigation added, the addons are often worth many times more than the original craft.

The cub is a marvel of minimalism, the least required technology for the most effective product. But the minimalist cub will be restricted from many airspaces until essential radionavigation intruments are added.

There is another old equivilent of a cub, the DC3. Its a twin engine version that can hual cargo, it shares many advantages of simplicity. Most people will never need a cub or a DC3, but when you need one, there are generally no other suitable replacements. There is nothing really pleasant about flying in either, except when considering the alternative.

Edited March 29, 2018 by PB666

[kerbiloid]

'cause it allows to fly like a pilot.

[PB666]

8 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Yeah, like this....

 

He had a hefty headwind. But I have actually seen videos of a cub land vertically in high wind at an airport. (well not vertically it was kindof bobbing forward and backward).

 

[benzman]

PB666, I was in the middle of  mentally composing an answer and now I don't need to!  I agree with everything you say, including the bit about the DC3.

Some things have a combination of factors that make them 'just right' and the Cub and the DC3 exemplify this.

 

[StrandedonEarth]

4 hours ago, PB666 said:

He had a hefty headwind. But I have actually seen videos of a cub land vertically in high wind at an airport.

Yeah, I figured as much. I was once in a small plane (think it was a Cessna) with an Air Cadet instructor, and we rode the headwind rising over Quadra Island to a standstill relative to the ground. After enjoying that phenomenon, we banked away out of it.

I've seen many other videos of Cubs STOLing, sandbars in rivers seem to be popular, like this one...

 

[Nuke]

its both easy and fun to fly. and its cheap.

Edited March 30, 2018 by Nuke

[XLjedi]

Kerbals had to outlaw propellers in their tech tree...  cuz they couldn't stop flying the Cub long enough to build rockets.  

 

[Thor Wotansen]

12 hours ago, XLjedi said:

Kerbals had to outlaw propellers in their tech tree...  cuz they couldn't stop flying the Cub long enough to build rockets.  

 

After building a stock 'replica' and one with KAX, I can fully corroborate this statement.

[Pawelk198604]

My virtual Pipper cub  

 

[NSEP]

You can buy an RC plane of a piper more expensive than the real deal.

[XLjedi]

3 hours ago, NSEP said:

You can buy an RC plane of a piper more expensive than the real deal.

I thought Cubs were RC planes in 1:1 scale?   

...just need to install the radio and servos like any other kits. 

[PB666]

19 hours ago, Pawelk198604 said:

My virtual Pipper cub

It would appear that that one has an Non-directional beacon.
In most populated areas you would not be allowed to fly with out a traffic radio.

ICAO adopted classifications

In most European countries you are at population densities were the traffic controllers should be able to contact you. In addition if you read the NOTAM for most airports there is a VFR radio frequency assigned from intertraffic landing and take off coordination.

 

[XLjedi]

@PB666 Mmmm... Okay?

@Pawelk198604  Consider yourself in violation of FAA virtual airspace regulations.  The Blue Angels will now be dispatched to troll your position.   

...and in the future, please stay clear of Honolulu controlled airspace!

 

Edited March 31, 2018 by XLjedi

[Pawelk198604]

2 hours ago, XLjedi said:

@PB666 Mmmm... Okay?

@Pawelk198604  Consider yourself in violation of FAA virtual airspace regulations.  The Blue Angels will now be dispatched to troll your position.   

...and in the future, please stay clear of Honolulu controlled airspace!

 

i always wonder how it works atc in MFS i never used it, but does is hard to be ATC? in MFS

And what i would need to be real atc?

[razark]

On 3/29/2018 at 1:32 PM, PB666 said:

The cub is a marvel of minimalism, the least required technology for the most effective product.

There is another old equivilent of a cub, the DC3. Its a twin engine version that can hual cargo, it shares many advantages of simplicity.

These are two of my favorites.

Usually, if I'm going to load up Flight Simulator, it's probably going to be one of these two.  They're simple aircraft, in that you don't have to deal with a whole lot, but they require you to pay attention to them.  It keeps you involved in flying them, instead of just throwing on autopilot and wandering off until it's time to land.

[PB666]

5 hours ago, Pawelk198604 said:

i always wonder how it works atc in MFS i never used it, but does is hard to be ATC? in MFS

And what i would need to be real atc?

ITs hard, really hard to do it well.

 

[PB666]

7 hours ago, XLjedi said:

@PB666 Mmmm... Okay?

If he wants to do it properly, he needs a flight followance. ATC often informs and provides services in the flight. Most often they will be warning you about restricted airspace.

Here's an airspace map of Poland. http://www.eurocontrol.int/sites/default/files/faq/content/documents/nm/best-practices/bp-pansa-class-g-fua.pdf

In addition Poland spontaneously closes the airspace within 20 km of the Eastern Border. 

[XLjedi]

@PB666  Mmmm...  Okay?

[kerbiloid]

This is good, but can be better.
 

Spoiler

 

[Thor Wotansen]

21 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

This is good, but can be better.
 

  Hide contents

 

That ungainly beast is an example of form following function.  It was designed as a crop duster, and to get around the problem of corrosive (to aluminum) liquids leaking into the empenage they moved the empenage.